


Darling, Kiss Me

by ohbthr (RegicidalDwarf)



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 03:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2213778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RegicidalDwarf/pseuds/ohbthr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written because Elenchus goaded me into it. Fic Trope Meme Response to "kissing to save the day."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darling, Kiss Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elenchus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elenchus/gifts).



"I don’t want to end up like my father, Peter. Please. Peter, please. I can’t."

Peter is probably panicking a little bit, the way he always does whenever someone gets too close to discovering his identity (he’s still not proud of the “American flag” line, but hey). It strikes him suddenly that while their renewed friendship has seemed remarkably easy so far, he isn’t sure he knows this version of Harry - the one that seems too angry, too jaded, just a little bit too everything. He wants to run away, he’s halfway out the door, but then Harry is collapsing into him, and Peter can feel the weight of his grief and fright. Peter holds him gingerly, adrenaline still making his heart race.

The hug lasts for a little longer than Peter intended, a little longer than normal. Harry turns his face into Peter’s neck and breathes deep and Peter stands up just a little straighter because what? Harry pulls back just a fraction and Peter has just a moment to think _Whoa, his eyes are really blue_ before Harry leans in and is kissing him. Peter has no actual idea how this became his life. The kiss is desperate on Harry’s side, careful on Peter’s. He hasn’t really kissed anyone other than Gwen, and he’s not totally sure that Harry is doing this for the right reasons. It feels like an offering - here, take me, is this good enough? Will you help if I give you everything? - and it doesn’t sit right. But he digs his hands into Harry’s hair and holds on anyway.

Harry breaks away and stares, eyes wide and very pale.

Peter grabs his phone out of his pocket and calls Gwen.

"Hi Peter!" Gwen says, sounding slightly breathless.

"Gwen! Hi! Are you at Oscorp right now?"

"Uh, for now," she says. "I’m maybe slightly running from security a little bit?"

"What?!" Peter yells. Harry has gone from bewildered to staring murder since he knew who Peter was calling, and maybe Peter shouldn’t be surprised, but this is important. "Gwen why is Oscorp security chasing you?"

Harry cocks an eyebrow. “I don’t know but I approve,” he says, too dry. Peter covers the mouthpiece and hisses “Gwen is a genius and just got accepted into Oxford for molecular medicine, if you want help we need her.” (This is maybe slightly an exaggeration. Gwen maybe hasn't heard back yet. Whatever, Gwen is amazing, of course she's going to get in.)

Harry grabs the phone out of Peter’s hands.

"Hi Gwen, this is Harry Osborn, yes, nice to meet you, listen, I need you to do exactly what I say. First, put me on speaker."

—

Gwen is getting really tired of the yelling. After Harry bullies the rest of Oscorp into leaving them alone, it’s Gwen who convinces Peter that Harry needs to know Spiderman’s identity. It goes…about as well as they maybe could have hoped (Harry only breaks one glass before he calms down). (Also maybe a table.) Then Harry pulls out a small cube that unlocks some kind of hidden Oscorp server, and then it’s _Peter_ doing all the self righteous yelling.

Gwen rests her head in her hands as Peter spouts phrases like _gross violations of human rights_ and _seriously this is like ten felonies_ and i _s plausible deniability still what you’re going for here_? It’s not that Gwen doesn’t agree, exactly, because she does, but more importantly, she’d really like to get some work done. She heard back from Oxford just a few days ago, and she’s officially in. They even offered her an early summer class, but she’s delaying her departure until fall. This seemed a little more important. They’ve been working for days round the clock, trying to synthesize a cure from Peter’s blood and so far it’s going…not great. First there’s the problem that Harry and Peter are completely incompatible blood types, then there’s the revelation that apparently the spider vemon was made with Richard Parker’s DNA, which makes it _even better_.

Also Gwen is pretty sure Peter and Harry made out, which is. Well, it is. They haven’t said anything, but Harry glares anytime Peter steps close to her and Peter only stammers that much around people he’s kissed.

Someone clears their throat. Gwen looks up from the computer monitor that’s been tracking their progress and sees a very pretty girl with long dark hair standing in the doorway.

"Hi" says Gwen.

"NO WONDER THEY’RE ALWAYS TRYING TO KILL US," says Peter.

"Peter, we have a visitor," says Gwen. Peter shuts his mouth with a click and looks over. Harry looks murderous, which is…well, pretty usual, actually.

"Felicia," Harry says. "Can we help you?"

"I couldn’t help overhearing a bit," she says. Gwen is pretty sure the entire floor could hear them, but maybe she’s being polite.

"And?" says Harry, who is allergic to politeness.

"Well I just thought you might be interested to know. The spiders you’re talking about were all killed, but they kept the venom. It’s kept in Special Projects."

There’s still the whole “incompatible DNA” thing to work out, but Gwen finally starts to feel a little bit hopeful.

—

Harry feels awful. Peter and Gwen have been locked in lab with the spider venom, liberated (read: stolen) from Special Projects for weeks. (The board had tried to stop him, but his name is on the goddamn building and they’re all soon-to-be-convicted felons anyway.) Every once in awhile they’ll emerge, poke him with needles, and disappear again. He’s taken to camping out in his office 24/7, thank god for delivery. The lesion on his neck isn’t getting better, and his hands shake pretty much constantly now. More than that, he aches, everywhere, and he hasn’t been able to sleep through the night in days.

"How did Norman live through this?" he asks Felicia, who is the only person he still likes, and the only person who will dare enter his office anymore. He’ll have to remember to not have her arrested once this is over.

Felicia tilts her head, cat like.

"I think he was always in a lot of pain," she says. "But he also tried everything he could think of to slow the symptoms. I think his work kept him strong."

"Ugh," says Harry. He’d been afraid of that. He doesn’t have the background for biochemistry, and what Peter and Gwen are doing are way beyond his limited scientific vocabulary anyway. Peter hasn’t said anything about the kiss, either, which is it’s own kind of awful. Harry knew it was a terrible idea, he doesn’t know why he did it except that he was angry and desperate and pretty sure he’d be dead in a week anyway, so fuck it, he was going to kiss the stupid boy with the big brown eyes who wouldn’t stop looking at him that way. Now he’s locked in a lab with his adorable, blonde, sweet ex girlfriend (plus every lab tech that Harry could verify probably wasn’t evil, but he doesn’t count those) and Harry kind of wants to set everything on fire.

He takes a nap instead, because it turns out being sick is exhausting, and waits.

—

Peter thinks his hands might be shaking. He’s not sure. His vision went a little skewy after the first week, when he stopped even pretending to have a normal sleep schedule. He and Gwen have been taking it in shifts, catching two hours naps here and there. He’s so tired he might be delirious.

"Gwen," he says. She’s still asleep on the couch they dragged out of the back corner of the lap, snoring slightly. He shakes her shoulder and she starts awake, blinking slowly. She looks as exhausted as he feels, her hair is pulled up into a high ponytail, neither of them have showered in days, and she’s still so beautiful it hurts to look at her. He thinks about kissing her, about how she would probably let him, and realize suddenly that he doesn’t want to. He still loves her, in a way that is probably not going to ever go away, but she’s leaving soon, and he thinks maybe he needs to let that happen. He swallows past the sudden lump in his throat.

"Gwen, I think you should come look at this," he says. "I think we need to bring this to Harry."

—

Harry is starting to maybe feel slightly less completely terrible. Part of that is the cure, which is finally starting to work. The other part is that other than a few breaks to go fight supervillains (because it turns out locking someone who runs on electricity in a prison that also runs on electricity isn’t actually the best idea, who knew? That’s another thing Harry is going to have to take care of once this is over), Peter has barely left Harry’s side.

"I can’t believe you did this for me," says Harry, because he’s maybe still feeling emotionally vulnerable, and lying about his emotions has never been his strongest asset anyway. Also Peter has a needle in his arm, so obviously it’s the best time for confessions.

"Of course I did," says Peter, sliding the needle out carefully and sticking on a Hello Kitty Band-Aid, because Peter is, at heart, an asshole. Whatever, Harry’s keeping it on there until it becomes unsanitary.

"Why would you do all this to help me?" Harry asks, because he never has been able to resist poking at wounds.

"I want you to be safe," says Peter. "You’re important to me." The kiss, when it happens this time, starts with both of them. It’s slow, and sweet, and Harry feels something lighten in his chest - like maybe for once everything’s going to be fine.

—

Gwen stares at the suitcase that is basically most of her belongings. A few things are being shipped, and she’s pretty sure there are a few things she’s forgotten or will have to buy once she’s there, but for the most part she’s ready to leave for Oxford. The doorbell rings as she’s trying to decide if she can fit one more pair of boots (it gets cold in England right?).

It’s not Peter, which she maybe would have expected, but Harry, which she definitely did not. Harry had tried to thank her by offering to pay for her tuition (she’d declined), and then her flight (she’d accepted that one. International flights are expensive, okay, and the scholarship didn’t cover travel expenses), but had then proceeded to completely ignore her in favor of “tripping” and “falling into Peter’s arms.”

"Hi," she says.

"Hi," says Harry, and then looks around awkwardly.

"Can I help you?" she asks.

"I was wondering if you needed a ride to the airport?" he says.

"My mom’s taking me," she says, because her mom has been crying for days about how she’s _such a grownup_ and _your dad would be proud_ and Gwen feels like her mom needs the closure of seeing her off.

"Right," he says. His hair has grown out this summer, it keeps falling in his eyes. It makes him look young, and not at all like the CEO of a Fortune 500 company that just fired most of his staff for gross violations of the Geneva Convention.

"Well I just was thinking," he says, "that I might need to start taking some trips to England. To check up on the London headquarters of Oscorp, make sure they haven’t gone as mad scientist as the New York ones."

Huh. Gwen actually has no idea what to do with that.

"Uh," says Harry, reacting to her lack of a reaction. "So, I was thinking that I might bring Peter when I come. Since, you know, you two are friends." Gwen tilts her head, and realizes suddenly that this is Harry trying to be _nice_. This is Harry trying to _make friends with her_.

"Sure," she says. "That would be lovely." Gwen has no idea how this became her life, but she’s feeling pretty damn lucky right now.


End file.
